User blog:Harold Burned-Mane/Heir to the Empire - Part II
Heir to the Empire, the story of the forgotten heirs to the Reman Empire and their road to prominence roughly 300 years before the birth of Tiber Septim in the 2nd Era. Parts: I, II. An Opportunity Appears The opportunity that Count Noster II had been waiting for finally came when one day he received reports that the army of Glademist, the Highlands's northeastern neighbors, was marching off to Skyrim. Noster was shocked and delighted. 1500 troops from Glademist were marching out of their county under the command of their Countess to aid the Kingdom of Whiterun in its wars in Skyrim. That left the county virtually defenseless, save for the small number of guards left to maintain order in the countess' absence. Countess Vinicia Vlinorman of Glademist was married to King Styrr of Whiterun, the two had two sons together, who were set to inherit the thrones of Whiterun and Glademist. However, King Styrr's lands in Skyrim were under threat. Whiterun was currently at war with two foes: The Reach and Eastern Skyrim. King Styrr had invaded the Reach in a war to claim the thanedom of Sunderstone from King Alabcain Karth, the Despot of Markarth. Alabcain had already been at war with Falkreath and their Colovian King, Attrebus Sosildor, so Styrr through that it was the right time to invade the Reach and claim lands that he though were rightfully his. This, however, ended up backfiring when High King Jorunn the Skald-King of Eastern Skyrim declared war on Whiterun to bring the hold into his own kingdom on his quest to unify the province of Skyrim. Whiterun, however, was allied to King Svargrim Cursebrand of Haafingar and was joined by him when Jorunn invaded. Even so, the two kingdoms together weren't strong enough to defend against the High King's powerful army while also keeping up their invasion of the Reach. Styrr had no choice but to rely on his wife's help to bolster his forces...but that too turned out to be a mistake. Count Noster was a deceitful man, a person not above using underhanded tactics to achieve his goals. When he heard that Glademist was largely undefended and without a leader, he immediately jumped at the opportunity. War for Glademist Count Noster immediately called his banners, ordering his vassals to rally their troops. Baron Tertius provided 136 of his finest soldiers, with Baron Riel only sending 56 of his knights to join the mounting army. From his holdings in Cloudtop, the Count managed 716 knights and from his personal lands in Rayles he gathered 1238 soldiers and militiamen. The soldiers began gathering at Rayles posthaste, not wanting to give their foes in Glademist the slightest bit of time to react to their aggression. When the army was gathered they marched towards the border in Nonwyll, a region in Baron Riel's lands. Baron Tertius took charge of the main flank as leader of the army, with Baron Riel taking the left and Count Noster taking the right. When their formation was settled the 2169 strong force marched across the border and into the County of Glademist's Moranda region. Like they had expected, there was no border guards to stop them along the way as they marched straight for the castle that controlled the region. All of the Countess' soldiers were far to the north in Skyrim. The Colovian troops marched up to the outskirts of the castle and set up barricades, laying siege of the castle as they cut off its supply routes to the nearby town. The only Glademist men left at the castle to defend it were a small skeleton crew, not enough to challenge the army that was outside their gates. However, Count Noster didn't want to risk assaulting the castle and losing more men that he needed to. The Count's army maintained the siege around the castle. It was a race against time. By now the Countess would've received word of the invasion of her lands, but Noster hoped that she'd be too busy with the wars in Whiterun to turn around and march her soldiers down to Cyrodiil. That assumption proved correct as within a few days the castle surrendered, after no word of any reinforcing army came down from his scouts in the Jerall Mountains. The siege was not without losses, however. While the Count's men were taking the castle, the soldiers of Moranda tried to betray their surrender and attacked. They took the defenders by surprise, catching them as they were marching victoriously into the castle. Baron Riel's knights were in the vanguard when they attacked. They fought bravely to protect their liege. Of the 56 knights, 51 of them died. The 5 that remained were successful in their duty and protected the Baron from the attackers. Other than the knights, another 53 men died in the attempt, but the Moranda soldiers were all put to the sword for such a dishonorable act. The castle was theirs and now only one more castle, the Countess' seat of Glademist itself, remained before they could take control of the region. Count Noster left 42 men to defend the newly captured castle of Moranda and marched the remaining 2027 soldiers to their next target. The defenders of the Countess' castle knew that no reinforcements were coming, but they weren't just going to hand over their liege's castle to the invaders. When Noster's army came to besiege the castle, the defenders sullied out and attempted to raid the attackers before their barricades were fully completed. The highlanders were already on alert, so the Glademist soldiers were in for a tough fight that they ultimately lost. After taking heavy losses, the defenders retreated to the castle, but after a few more days they surrendered after the siege was completed. With the castle captured, Count Noster proclaimed the lands a part of the Colovian Highlands and de facto his lands. He exiled the Countess' supporters from his new lands and planted new nobles that swore allegiance to him. Count Noster dismissed his forces and returned to his castle in Rayles. He would need to let his soldiers rest for the time being. He would need to pacify the capture lands while they awaited for the right time to attack his southern neighbors. A New Foe While Count Noster II was busy bringing order to his new lands in Glademist and Moranda, he received some troubling news from his Spymaster in Rayles. His Spymaster had spotted Hostilius, the Chancellor of Varondo, sneaking around in the lands of Castle Rayles. Upon investigating the matter, his spymaster learned that Hostilius was busy trying to forge claims for his liege, Baron Gregor Aquilarios, on the surrounding lands. Normally such a falsified document was useless in the hands of a mere Baron, but Gregor was a relative of the King of Kvatch. The King could very well decided to press his cousin's claims on Noster's lands. That was a terrible prospect. The Colovian Highlands weren't strong enough in their current form to fight off the full might of Kvatch. Despite the Spymaster's best efforts, Hostilius managed to escape back to Varondo with the falsified documents. Count Noster was now on a timer. If he took too long to claim the rest of Chorrol, he'd be too weak to defeat an army from Kvatch. He needed to hurry his conquests and solidify his control of the region before his southern neighbor took advantage of these documents to declare war on him. Retaliation from Count Lucan Wanting to get ahead of the looming threat of Kvatch, Count Noster ordered the attack on the nearby County of Ash. He decided to declare the war even if his army wasn't fully recovered from the war with Glademist. It was a risk, sending tired soldiers to war, but he hoped that their superior numbers would overwhelm Count Lucan's men. The levees reluctantly departed their homes after having just returned from the battlefront. Since the former territories of Glademist were busy with keeping order, the new Barons were unable to contribute to the war effort. They got word that the County of Ash were preparing for the incoming invasion. Unlike the surprise war on Glademist, the enemies were going to be prepared. Count Lucan seemed not to want to wait around and let his lands get invaded. As soon as he received word of the army gathering in the Highlands, he marched his men into Glademist to attack Noster's lands were they were weakest. They besieged the castle of the new Baron while the armies were still assembling. Eventually, the Highlanders managed to gather their army and marched towards Glademist, where the castle was losing the siege. Word was that the castle would only have a few more days before they surrendered. Noster ordered the men to press the march in order to arrive before the castle fell. Letting the Ash army hold up in the castle would be terrible. According to the scouts, the Highlanders had a major advantage in numbers, over twice the size of the Ash army. Even if the Highlanders were tired from the march, Noster's commanders were sure that the numbers would tip the scales of the battle. The Highlanders caught the Ash army in the nick of time. Noster led the left flank of the army as they came against the Count Lucan's camp. They used their superior numbers to surround Lucan's army and flank them from both sides. With the Highlanders on one side and the castle on the other, the Ash army had no where to go and was smashed. The battle ended with a great victory for the Colovian Highlanders. Of Count Lucan's 1000 men, only 20% remained of his army. They managed to escape, and fled back into their lands with their tails between their legs. ---- Leave your thoughts on the story below and if you'd like I can add custom characters created by you guys to the story. If you want to suggest a custom character just leave a message below or ask on the Discord and I will ask you the necessary information for creating the custom character. The custom characters can be vassals or courtiers of Noster. The available positions currently are: *Chancellor (Should be a character good in diplomacy) *Marshal (Should be a character good in martial) *Steward (Should be a character good in stewardship) *Magister (Should be a character good in learning) *Spymaster (Should be a character good in intrigue) Category:Blog posts Category:Elder Kings Category:Stories